Shaping Tomorrow: Videhi’s Journey Across Energy, Innovation, And Inclusion

Check Out How This Resilient Climate-Tech Leader With Ambitions Of Opening a Climate Tech Fund Made It To Columbia Business School.

Born and raised in Calcutta, Videhi grew up at the intersection of cultures—her father from Rajasthan, her mother from Andhra, and both deeply rooted in the city. This upbringing, enriched by North, South, and East Indian traditions, as well as a secular education in a Christian convent school, instilled in her an openness to diverse cultures and perspectives. But her early years were also marked by adversity. Frequent cyclones, floods, and crippling pollution worsened her grandfather’s health. Incessant load shedding and power cuts forced her to study by candlelight, exposing her to the realities of India’s infrastructure gaps, despite living in a metro city. These experiences planted the seeds of her enduring commitment to energy and sustainability.

The spirit of science and resilience ran deep in her family. With a civil engineer grandfather and a grandmother who was a biology gold medalist, Videhi was inspired early by stories of innovation. Encouraged by her parents to pursue a well-rounded life, she excelled academically, graduating as a school gold medalist, while also training in martial arts with her sister for nearly a decade, eventually earning her black belt. Volunteering and athletics were not just extracurriculars but foundational to the holistic worldview she carried forward.

At BITS Pilani, where she pursued a degree in chemical engineering, Videhi’s curiosity about entrepreneurship and social change blossomed. She was actively involved in the Entrepreneurship Cell and rural development initiatives, working on projects that ranged from cloth-based sanitary napkins for villages to research on sustainability and lifecycle assessment, which won national recognition. Her field visits also revealed stark gender disparities, with women in nearby villages not even being allowed to speak to her directly, a moment that galvanized her drive to confront inequities in society and business.

Professionally, Videhi began her career with KBC, a UK-headquartered oil and gas consulting firm that was later acquired by Yokogawa. Based in Mumbai but often deployed across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, she was thrust into refinery shop floors as one of the youngest and often the only woman in the room. Leading training sessions for engineers decades older, she learned to command respect through technical mastery and clarity. This global exposure shaped her ability to assimilate across cultures and strengthened her resilience.

Yet, while she valued decarbonizing legacy industries, Videhi aspired to work directly on building a clean-energy future. Transitioning to CleanMax, India’s leading renewable energy developer, as Senior Manager in Business Development, she spearheaded cross-functional negotiations across project finance, legal, and engineering to deliver large-scale renewable projects. Among her most significant achievements was leading discussions that secured a 92MW wind-solar hybrid agreement with Cisco, the largest such private-sector renewable contract in India at the time. This success reinforced her ability to drive systemic impact through commercial and technical acumen.

Her growing interest in innovation and entrepreneurship led her to engage with climate-tech startups, exploring storage pilots to address intermittency challenges in renewable energy. This curiosity drew her into the venture capital ecosystem, where she was selected for the prestigious Kalari Capital fellowship. At Kalari, Videhi evaluated over 60 startups, and helped execute a $1M investment in climate intelligence startup Resilience. Further, she led the fund’s flagship Net Zero Summit, which brought together 200+ founders and investors. She also worked closely with Kalari’s leadership on thought leadership pieces in carbon commerce and early-stage climate investing.

Across every stage of her journey, whether on refinery floors, in boardrooms, or in startup ecosystems, Videhi has remained guided by one conviction: impact and profitability can go hand in hand. Her long-term ambition is to establish her own climate-focused fund, backing entrepreneurs who will shape the future of sustainability, deep tech, and health in India and beyond.

In 2024, Videhi’s journey came full circle when she was admitted to Columbia Business School with a $100,000 scholarship. From the girl who once studied by candlelight in Calcutta to a leader driving India’s clean energy and climate-tech future, Videhi’s story reflects resilience, vision, and a commitment to building solutions that serve both society and business.

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